Imagine yourself homeless at age eleven.  An eleven year old boy shining shoes to earn enough money to eat.  What would your dreams be?  Would you let them succumb to your reality or would you keep believing?  Imagine yourself working in the local fairgrounds and hiding after work so that you could sneak back into the horse stalls to find a warm bed in the hay.  As you lay alone in that stall at night, would you believe that you could fight for a better future or would you lie there, blame your circumstances, and let self-pity consume the light of hope?

Such were the choices that the young Paul LePage faced.  Unfortunately, Mr. LePage’s early story is not unique to a large amount of our nation’s children who end up on the streets of our cities.  What is unique is the decision that the young waif made in the midst of that desolation.  Paul LePage decided to fight back…the right way.  Despite seemingly insurmountable odds, young LePage resolved to work and earn his way free from the depressing and humiliating bonds of Maine’s entitlement system.

Paul LePage was born the oldest of eighteen children.  The LePage family was very poor and lived under the constant threat of a drunken, abusive father.  At the age of eleven, young Paul ran away from home to escape the abuse.  He lived on the streets until the age of thirteen, earning money anyway he could from shining shoes to cleaning horse stalls.

Finally, two families took notice of the young street urchin’s industrious nature and put him to work.  Eddy and Pauline Collins gave him a job washing dishes in their restaurant and housed the thirteen year old for part of the week.  The rest of the week he stayed with Bruce and Joan Myrick and stacked boxes in Bruce’s Pepsi-cola delivery truck.  Good people doing good deeds.  It is one of the things that have always made America great.  A hand up not a hand out was exactly what Paul LePage needed.

At some point, the teenager met Peter Snowe.  Mr. Snowe is the late and first husband of Olympia Snowe.  He took a liking to Paul Lepage and offered to pay for his first year of college tuition if he would finish his degree.  Paul LePage promised and kept his promise.

Mr. LePage was raised speaking and reading French so passing the entrance exam was difficult.  Mr. Snowe convinced Husson College to administer the exam in French.  Once admitted, Paul LePage’s English speaking skills improved dramatically and he eventually graduated with honors.

In the years since then, Mr. LePage has worked throughout the state of Maine and Canada; his specialty, turning around businesses.  He has also serves to this day as the general manager of Maine’s largest retailer, Mardens.  Perhaps his greatest accomplishment is his highly successful leadership of the city of Waterville.  As the Mayor, he has lowered the mil rate every year he has been in office.  He has been successfully re-elected even in a strongly Democratic city.  I think the spokesman for the LePage campaign said it best when he said that this proves citizens may believe in “Liberalism in theory but they embrace Conservatism when they see it in practice”.

I have heard Paul LePage speak multiple times in his visits to the Red County.  While he may not be the most polished of speakers, he speaks directly and honestly.  He’s a “no bull” kind of guy; in fact, he seems to be more comfortable with the tough one on one question forum.  It is the street fighter in him.

This is a man who has been so far down he had to look up to see the bottom and, yet, he scrapped his way back up to success.  Perhaps, a mountain of socialist debt is not too intimidating for him.  The political elites don’t like him and don’t take him seriously.  I don’t think Paul LePage really cares.  I know this columnist doesn’t.

Maine citizens are faced with seemingly insurmountable odds in the recovery of our great State from the hands of the socialists.  In the next four to eight years, we must engage in a political war in which the very future of this great State hangs in the balance.  What kind of leader should lead the charge?  One who has overcome those odds already or one who has not?  Think about it …. Conservatively.

Through the luck of the draw, Bruce Poliquin was the first gubernatorial candidate to speak at “The Red County Caucus”.  This could, for some, be an unenviable position, but Mr. Poliquin handled it well.  He was probably the most polished of all the speakers.  He presented himself with measured energy and intensity.  It was an impressive speech.

Bruce Poliquin is a native of Waterville.  He is the third generation of his family to live in Waterville.  Mr. Poliquin cites his family and their relations (the Cyrs, the Doyons, and the Bouchards) as major contributors to business and its management in the State of Maine.  Research seems to back up his claim.

Unlike Les Otten, Bruce Poliquin’s background seems to be relatively clean.  The news media did dredge up an incident that involved the theft of a traffic sign when Bruce was nineteen.  The Maine Conservative Voice does stand in support of all the helpless traffic signs throughout the State of Maine.  We demand that Bruce Poliquin never, ever do that again.  That was really, really naughty, Bruce.  The airstream media must have had a crack research team on that little jewel.  Okay, back to more serious things.

Mr. Poliquin earned his degree in economics from Harvard.  This columnist was surprised at the negative reaction so many caucus goers had to the word Harvard.  While I can understand the angst and suspicion that many may have against elite schools, remember that those degrees come with hard work.  An individual should not be judged negatively solely on the basis of his education or lack thereof, for that matter.  As a man who has not been able to achieve the level of education he would have liked, I respect Mr. Poliquin’s accomplishments.

Many caucus attendees also expressed a strong dislike for lawyers.  Remember that legislation is the business of lawmaking and it takes a lawyer to catch a lawyer, to play on an old saying.  While it is true that lawyers have had a strangle hold on the modern political process, we still should not discount the need for their input in that process.  I have friends and mentors that are lawyers; therefore, I can attest, there is such a thing as a good honest lawyer.

The Maine Conservative Voice does have some issues with Mr. Poliquin. First, is his claim that he is the only candidate that is native to Maine.  Unfortunately for Mr. Poliquin, this claim shows a complete lack of research.  It took this columnist all of thirty seconds to find that Peter Mills was born in Farmington, Paul Lepage was born in Lewiston, and Steve Abbott was born in Orono.  Even with my nominal knowledge of geography, the fact that there is an ME attached to each one of those towns suggests that they could be in the State of Maine.  This may be a miscalculation by a campaign team but it is not very impressive.  I think Mainers are desperate enough for relief and freedom that, hopefully, we are beyond “you’re not from here” attitudes.  Just do the job, conservatively.

While this campaign tactic is a head scratcher, this next is a killer from a conservative point of view.  Mr. Poliquin is the only candidate, save for a liberal left wing loon, which is for mandatory background checks on guns.  Geography again, Mr. Poliquin.  This is the State of Maine.  Not even the Democrats and Peter Mills are for background checks.  They know better.  Les Otten didn’t even speak “reluctantly” in favor of this.  He knows better, amazingly.

This political stance will destroy Bruce Poliquin’s campaign unless he backs off it quickly.  Both Democrats and Republicans alike feel strongly about gun rights in Maine.  This columnist believes Bruce Poliquin is a clean candidate.  He is fiscally conservative, but his weakness on gun rights and social issues will probably be his undoing.

Finally, I would like to send heartfelt good wishes and a get well soon to Miriam McArthur of the Central Maine Republican Women.  Miriam is a driving force behind the Conservative movement in Piscataquis County.  Her impact is immeasurable.  My family’s prayers are with you in your battle with cancer.  We believe for the best.  God bless you! Get well soon!

Matt Jacobson was provided an opportunity to address “The Red County Caucus”.  He was invited to come.  Mr. Jacobson chose not to appear; but, rather, sent a representative to speak to the caucus.  Mr. Jacobson wants to portray himself as a Conservative, and it may well be that he is, but to snub the most conservative voting block in the State of Maine is certainly not a way to buff one’s conservative credentials.

So while Matt Jacobson’s body double spoke about what Matt Jacobson would say if Matt Jacobson were actually here to say it, “The Red County Caucus” was left wondering if this was a real representation or a figment of our imagination.  I have to say, on a personal note, that the arrogant tone that Mr. Jacobson’s alter ego took at the caucus left me feeling a little insulted.  Furthermore, the mocking grin and disdainful shaking of the head at Mayor Lepage’s presentation was in poor taste and, quite frankly, juvenile.  I hope if Matt Jacobson can find the time to make it to the Center Theater Debate on May 1^st that his behavior is more in keeping with professionalism than the hologram he sent to “The Red County Caucus”.

Mr. Jacobson has honorably served this Country and State as an Air Force pilot.  As the son of a veteran who served in Vietnam with the Air Force, I have nothing but the utmost respect for Matt Jacobson’s service.  My father also pastored a church in Presque Isle that many airmen from Loring AFB attended.  The time I spent on the base in Limestone with good Air Force friends only deepened my belief that our military personnel are the greatest on the face of the earth.

Does military service qualify you for Governor?  Well, it certainly doesn’t hurt, but for me, it all boils down to Conservatism.  All of these candidates are trying to sell their conservatism to the public.  Why?  Simply put, the public has seen liberalism at work in Augusta for 35 years and a liberal President for a year and a half.  They are not impressed.  So now, all the candidates are “going Conservative”, but we must examine them closely.

Unfortunately, Mr. Jacobson is another that has very little record to go on.  He seems to be a fiscal Conservative, but is not a social Conservative.  He has worked to negotiate and attract business into the State of Maine.  Mr. Jacobson seems to think his negotiating ability will help him attract business to Maine as Governor.  He should be reminded that we now have a President who also thought he could sweet talk problems away.  How well is that working out?  Only tax cuts and deregulation will attract business and jobs to Maine.  It is that simple.

Finally, a columnist in the Piscataquis Times made it very clear two weeks ago that, if a Conservative is a public figure, their children are free targets to attack and feast upon.  Mr. Jacobson has a beautiful young family and should be aware of this view from the left.  Obviously, Liberals feel children should only be protected if the parents of the children adhere to a liberal point of view.  It is a shameful thing to read that there are those who would advocate the public humiliation and mockery of a fellow human being’s child as an acceptable expression of disdain for that child’s parent.  What have we become?  I completely disagree with everything President Obama stands for, but could not even fathom thinking a malicious thought against his two beautiful girls. They are not even in the picture.  That’s the way it should be.

Thankfully for Liberals, they don’t have to worry about Conservatives attacking their children.  We just won’t.  It violates our principles.  Liberals, on the other hand, have no scruples because the end justifies the means.  Let’s be very clear.  We have never as a nation found the brutalization of a public figure’s children an acceptable practice.  The idea that a columnist in the Piscataquis Times would find that practice acceptable is heinous and reprehensible.

I am not sure that Matt Jacobson is experienced or qualified enough to be Governor; that said, one thing has become very clear in the past few weeks, Mr. Jacobson and his wife need to think long and hard about the “new” view of a Conservative’s children.  To some, it seems, if a child is born to Conservative, their wellbeing is expendable.  It’s hard to stomach that, even in politics.